Mental age is a concept in relation to intelligence, expressed as the age at which a child is performing intellectually. The mental age of the child that is tested is the same as the average age at which normal children achieve a particular score.
However, a mental age result on an intelligence test does not mean that children function at their "mental age level" in all aspects of life. For instance, a gifted six-year-old child can still in some ways function as a three-year-old child. Mental age was once considered a controversial concept.
Read more about Mental Age: Mental Age and IQ
Famous quotes containing the words mental and/or age:
“Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions. A large bulky figure has a good a right to be in deep affliction, as the most graceful set of limbs in the world. But, fair or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will pa tronize in vain,—which taste cannot tolerate,—which ridicule will seize.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)
“Were not the right man on our side,
The man of God’s own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he,
Lord Sabaoth is his name,
From age to age the same,
And he must win the battle.”
—Martin Luther (1483–1546)